John

My house is to the west of my patch of the garden but the moon was been just above the roofline for a while. And Mars above it too. Mars very small disk now. I can see the phase and suggestions of dark features at 300x but it's darned hard work !

Solid cloud cover about 30 minutes ago but just cleared so I popped the 100mm Tak out to have a quick look at the moon. Lovely phase with superb and delicate "beads" of illuminated terrain at the southern cusp leading on to the darkened disk faintly glowing with earthshine. Bad mobile phone snap but it was hurried and I'm no imager (obviously) Much sharper through the eyepiece though

It's just cleared here as well ! Popped a refractor out to look at the moon

The odd thing about last night was that the transparency did not look that promising to the casual view. Indicators such as the visibility of Ursa Minor stars were not that good and the sky generally had a slightly milky / yellow look to it. When I actually started to observe with the scope though, things were somewhat better The distant galaxies in Coma B that I picked up had a surface brightness of around magnitude 13 I think, which is not too bad from my back yard. Clouded out tonight so no observing

That's odd. On my version of Stellarium (0.21.0) the object in the position highlighted in your screen shot is NGC 4435, the 2nd of "The Eyes" galaxies. No star shown there

I get on fine with binoculars but not with binoviewers, unfortunately I've owned 2 or 3 of the latter items but found that they were just not "my cup of tea" so let them go to new homes. I've no explanation as to why this is though This ought to have been a wonderful observing experience

Thanks for the "heads up" on SN 2021 hpr @davhei I shall have a go at that one with my 12 inch dob at the next opportunity. The faintest point source that I've managed to see with that scope is magnitude 14.7 so I should be in with a chance. I also agree re: observing close to a zenith for very faint targets. As an object gets closer to the horizon atmospheric extinction takes it's toll. Stellarium gives an estimate of the impact of this on an objects brightness.

I've just realised that by "large dob" you mean your 20 inch ! Having observed M13 and M51 with a 20 inch under dark skies a few years ago I can appreciate the impact that such views have - unforgettable

Just a short report tonight. Better transparency than last night. 12 inch dobsonian in use. I won't list all the targets but I observed 40+ galaxies including a great run of 16 along the Markarian's Chain ending with M88. Some 350 million LY's off in Coma Berenices. A slew of the brighter favourites as well. Added to that a couple of planetary nebulae, a half dozen globular clusters and a supernova 81 million LY's away and it's been a satisfying session. Most of the time the 13mm Ethos eyepiece has been the one in the drawtube. It's proving a very effective eyepiece for winkling out these fainter fuzzies over the past few sessions with this scope. It's still dark and clear out there but I'll draw things to a close for tonight and have a nice cup of something warming

Yes, I've just been looking at it with my 12 inch dobsonian and it seems around magnitude 13 still.

Nice stuff ! I have my 12 inch dob out as well. I've picked out a few nice things and the supernova in Virgo but there are some ominous clouds coming over from Wales so I don't know how much longer I've got. Hope your clear skies continue

Just picked it up with the 12 inch dob. Seems the same brightness as last time - similar to the nearby mag 13 star.

Last night it was plainly milky. Many of the dimmer stars in constellations were simply not showing. I find the visibility of the stars that form the rectangle of Ursa Minor a reasonable quick guide. If I can see all 4 clearly then the transparency is quite good for here. If I can see Theta then it's better still: Last night, most of the time I could only see 2/3 of these stars and a quick look at Messier 51 confirmed it - barely visible at all. It did get better later on though.

Hoping to have another look at this SN tonight

I have the ES 92 17mm but with my refractors I tend to use the Delos 17.3mm much more often with the 24mm Panoptic for a lower magnification and wider true field.

I'm happy these days to sit back and wait for the reports from others before I decide whether to invest My good intentions in the past to rationalize my eyepieces down to a small set have all floundered. I'm probably someone who just likes having a couple of cases of eyepieces If I did get one of these zooms, being realistic about myself, it would be likely to be in addition to my fixed focal length eyepieces, rather than to replace them.

Thanks folks ! By the time I had decided to pack up for the night the transparency had improved, of course I think I was affected by a local bank of haze coming from the Severn estuary which I'm only a mile or so from. I enjoyed what I did though and I have had a number of good deep sky nights recently with the dob.

The nearest I get to this is the Nagler T5 with my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 which is a 3.8 degree true field. As well as being able to take in large targets, sweeping around with these low power / very wide fields of view shows up star patterns that you can otherwise overlook I think. I find the area of sky around the double cluster in Perseus very interesting in this respect - all sorts of strings of stars and asterisms around there. Almost any area of the sky is productive though. Seeing a familiar deep sky object or a planet looking tiny within the context of an expansive star field can be lovely as well

My simple understanding of the way that novae work is that the white dwarf is accreting matter from the secondary star so I wonder if that, over time, changes the spectral classification of the latter ? I also wonder if this one will result in a nova remnant ? I'm probably over-simplifying a complex process

Looking at the optical layout of the original and new / re-released 30mm and 40mm XW's, it does not look like anything has changed so I would expect the FC to be the same as well. Not as much as the 20mm and 14mm though:

Sounds like a dodgy headline from tomorrows papers to me

The transparency might be a little better now but I've got a bit cold so I finished the session with Delta Cygni, Epsilon Lyrae and finally Izar in Bootes. Three "classic" double stars

Lovely stuff Stu ! I've just finished on Izar as well

Great pairing Stu They are "meant to be together" I think

I've got my 130mm refractor out tonight. I was going to have a look at some galaxies and other deep sky stuff but the transparency is really not good here tonight. Shame because we have had some great nights for faint fuzzies lately. This is not one of those though To make up for that, the seeing is pretty steady so I've concentrated on double stars. Some great views of favourite pairs and multiples around Cancer, Leo and Virgo. While having a break, I came across a Sky & Telescope piece (link below) on the double stars in Draco so I've been going through some of those, which has been fun Here is the link: https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/double-date-with-a-dragon/ I think my favourite in the Dragon so far tonight has been Eta Draconis. A multiple star with a close, uneven brightness pair as the central feature. The A & B stars are separated by 4.4 arc seconds but it's the brightness difference that creates the challenge and the fascination. The A star is magnitude 2.8 but the B star is just magnitude 8.2. With the washed out transparency it's easy to overlook this faint B star tucked in quite close to the A star. When you do manage to spot it, they make a very delicate and striking pairing Some nice targets for the big refractor in Draco, plus that lovely planetary nebula, "The Cats Eye", NGC 6543, which is bright enough to cut through the hazy conditions and it's central star can just about be made out. Bootes is rising above the trees now so I'll have a look over there and see if I can find some more lovely star pairings The fainter fuzzies will have to wait for another night.